Behind the Hauler: Trevor Bayne -

He’s been on a whirlwind tour since becoming the youngest driver to win the Daytona 500 but Trevor Bayne has even found time to get back behind the wheel of a racecar since taking the checkered flag in “The Great American race” a month ago.
Bayne has been on a constant travel schedule completing every imaginable media interview possible from coast-to-coast with appearances on everything from “Ellen” to “Good Morning America” to “The George Lopez Show.”
The young driver has also had to navigate a busy racing schedule doing double duty on the Nationwide Series and Sprint Cup Series in between the publicity madness.
He finally slowed down for a few days during the NASCAR off-weekend and spent some time with family in his native Knoxville, Tennessee and was able to stop by Sirius NASCAR Radio’s “The Morning Drive” for a few minutes to share thoughts about his roller coaster ride and upcoming trip to his home state track in Bristol.
What have you been up to the last few days at home base in Knoxville?

I got to spend some time with my family and got to go up to the capitol building in Nashville the other day…I’ve done all kinds of cool stuff man. My little brother learned to ride his bike without training wheels, went to the go-kart track for a second time to practice – we had a really cool weekend.
You always seem like a guy who’s full of energy but today you seem a little re-energized. Did the off weekend come at a really good time for you?
It couldn’t come at a better time really, I really needed it.  Trying to get back on track a little I mean we’ve been so busy. After the 500 we were always on a schedule – you guys know me I like to have my time to do like whatever and I wasn’t getting that at all. 7 O’clock, 8 O’clock, 9 O’clock – you’re always on a schedule and you leave one thing you’ve got five minutes to get to the next. For me to settle down for a few days that was really cool, I turned my phone off and just hung out.
Did you talk to President Obama?
No I didn’t talk to the President, I did talk to vice president Joe Biden. We were kidding around and he said the worst part about being vice president is you can’t drive cars anymore you have to be driven around so we’re going to take him out to s kid pad and let him fool around one day. (Laughs) But I don’t think the country trusts me enough for that one yet. But I mean it’s been so cool everything that’s happened. I was at the go-kart track yesterday and I have little five-year kids coming up to me and saying “I want to be just like you.” I’m like man this is crazy. It’s insane. I dreamed about this one day but I didn’t think it would happen so soon.
Now once you’ve got the first three races under your belt and you go back to work this weekend at Bristol Motor Speedway, did you go to Bristol a lot when you were growing up there in Knoxville?
I did. I’ve gone almost every year since I was five years old, I’d get out of Kindergarten early and rub it in all my friends face. I’d get to go out there and go down into the pits…..I’ve actually raced there more than nay other track in NASCAR. I’ve raced there six times, three in Nationwide and three in Hooters Cup so we’ve got a lot of track time there which is good for us.
We were talking about after the off weekend how it’s good for the sport to pick things up at a place like Bristol, I’d have to say in your case it’s really good to pick things back up at Bristol.

Yeh we’ve got a ton of people coming so I’m excited about that. I mean you need a ton of rest before you go there if you’re going to do both races so I’m glad I’ve had a little time to rest up here and get ready for a guess about 800 laps of racing this weekend. I think on Friday I get in the car like at 8 in the morning and don’t get out until like six with both series.
What is your expectation for the weekend? You have the new Nationwide Series car on Saturday and the first time in a Sprint Cup Series there on Sunday. You’re going to have a pretty big learning curve ahead of you.
Yeh for the teams too. I think this is going to be one of the toughest tracks we’ve gone to for the new cars trying to the set-up right, trying to get the attitude right when it loads up there as you’re coming through the center of the corner.  The Cup car I don’t really know what to expect. I think it’s going to be a good track for us, I know we have strong cars. You look at what Ford has done in these last five race, they’ve won four of them and probably should have won all of the Cup races so I’m pumped about going there in the Cup car. We’ve got really good power, we’ve got good stuff and (crew chief) Donnie Wingo and I are learning a lot about each other. Last week in Vegas we were running eleventh and I kind of got messed up coming to pit road…..I think we’re good there. I think we’re going to be contenders for the top ten pretty soon and on the Nationwide side we’re still looking for that first win. We’re working on it every week, getting a little better and a little better but hopefully at Bristol that would be a perfect place to get that first win in front of a hometown crowd and I’d love to be able to do that there.
What are one or two things that you have to do well at Bristol in order to win?
Well first of all you’ve got to make it to the end that’s the big thing. It’s kind of like racing at Daytona or restrictor plate racing in a sense or short track racing in America, I mean you have to survive the race and be there at the end and I think if you do that you’re a top ten finisher. That’s kind of our goal there and to be able to strike at the end if we can keep our car in one piece. So stay out of trouble and the second thing make sure you can get your car to turn off the bottom and make passes. It’s so tough to pass there. A lot of times when you get inside of somebody you get really loose as you come up and off the corner where either you’re gonna slide the nose or you’re gonna snap around. I always practice on the bottom because I figure it’s easier to move up so we’ll see what we can learn there when we first get on the racetrack to use for Saturday and Sunday.
extracted from cbssports.com