On the roots of his race obsession: “You go [to a race] and you see the colors, you see the speed and you smell the smells … you’re enveloped by everything involved.”
On being the Cavs’ “43”: “I had some great teammates and got to play for a great coach in Lenny Wilkens. I had a lot of fun, and I thought we brought basketball back to more respectability in Cleveland.”
On meeting the other “43” as a kid: “[Richard Petty] actually spent about 10 minutes talking to me about what I like and who I am and where I’m from. It’s not necessarily the words that he spoke to me. It was the way he had time for me. Here I am, this little African-American kid walking around with my dad. No one else stopped to speak to us. He didn’t have to do that. It made an impression on me.”
On getting behind the wheel: “Physically, it’s not pretty, me getting in a race car. The Good Lord made me this size to keep my behind out of race cars.”
On the Cavs Brad Daugherty bobblehead doll: “You’ve really arrived when you’ve got your own bobblehead doll. … My wife uses it. I think she thinks it’s a voodoo doll.”
