PR: I love it when you talk to the legends of motorsports and give credit to the pioneers of the sport. Do you have a favorite part of the show?

DM: That's absolutely it. Sirius Speedway Legends is far and away the best thing we do. Sadly some of them are not even with us anymore. Benny Parsons, and guys like that. That is far and away the thing we are proudest of.

PR: I think it's great that you do that. Not enough people give them their just due for what they went through. They didn't make any money, they did it for the love of it and that is why we are all here now. At least give a tip of the hat to those people. You travel around the United States for NASCAR and broadcasting so much, do you have a favorite track or city that you love to go to?

DM: I have a lot of favorite tracks. I have always had a soft spot in my heart for Martinsville because that is the place I saw my first Cup race. I love Dover. Being a New England kid, you know this, if you were going to go to a Cup race back then you went to Martinsville and you went to Dover. That was the big time for us. I love those two tracks still. I love Talladega just for the atmosphere. It's just an incredible scene. When NASCAR shows up at Talladega, Alabama it's like they just shut the whole state down and everybody goes and parties for a while. And you can't go to Daytona for the 500 and not get jacked up about that.

PR: How did you get the nickname "The Godfather of Motorsports?" Who tagged you with that?

DM: That was John Kernan. The first few weeks of Sirius NASCAR Radio, we went from one motorsports show to three or four because we had to fill a whole day. John Kernan was one of the original co-hosts of what is now Tradin' Paint. And he got talking one day, I guess about how Sirius NASCAR Radio was pretty new but that wehad been there for three years. We used to kid how all you Johnny Come Latelys come in here. We're they ones that plowed the field, picked all the rocks, dynamited the stumps and got everything ready. You guys come in and harvest the crops. So he got going one day kind of jokingly how we were the ones who were there and paved the way for Sirius NASCAR and he started calling me The Godfather. You know how things are: you say something once and people never forget. I blame Kernan forever (laughs).

PR: When I listen to Sirius Speedway I hear caller after caller propose changes. If I were to ask you that question, if you were to change something to improve the sport what would it be?

DM: I would turn the top thirty-five rule upside down. And I have been pretty outspoken about this and I know NASCAR sometimes gets a little irritated with me but I think the top thirty-five rule solves a problem that doesn't exist anymore. I would turn it on its head. Instead of locking in the top thirty-five guys and making eight race their way in, I'd say everyone races their way in. Qualifying actually means qualifying instead of just arranging. Everyone runs their time trial laps and the thirty-five fastest guys no matter who they are, where they are in points, wherever are in the show. And after you've got your thirty-five-man field set you go back through. You take the top seven guys in points that aren't in the race and you add them to the tale end of the field. And then you do your past champion's provisional for spot forty-three like they do now. If you compare time trial results to the actual field you would lose a quality driver about once every seven years. Everybody is scared to death that Dale Junior is going to blow a tire and hit the wall in qualifying and he is not going to make the race and everybody's going to be mad. Well if you are taking the top seven guys in points that haven't made the race on time you are never going to lose Dale Earnhardt, Jr. You are never going to lose Jeff Gordon. You are never going to lose Tony Stewart. You are still going to have they guys who sell the tickets in the race every single week and all of a sudden qualifying means something again. I'm a little derisive about the Friday program. I refuse to call Friday qualifying day. I call it arranging day. Because ninety-five percent of the guys show up at the track are already qualified. They aren't qualifying. They are just determining what order they are starting in. I would put some spice right back into Friday again. With that said, NASCAR has done this deal for a long time and they've done it well. I don't necessarily agree with every little detail of everything they do but at the end of the day I've got to look back over the last fifty years and say they have done a pretty outstanding job. I can nit-pick with the best of them but I'll admit their package works pretty well.

PR: Do you have a favorite moment that you have called on a broadcast? Something that you were glad to be the voice of?

DM: I've got a couple. I mentioned one of them before. The first time I ever called the Daytona 500. Darrell Waltrip finally winning the Daytona 500 and if you remember the way he did it he gambled on fuel. My call at the time was "Darrell Waltrip rolling the dice and I think he is going to make it." Nobody knew if that car was going to die going down the backstraightaway on the final lap. So that was pretty cool. For a kid out of Vermont, not only at his first Daytona 500, but calling it for a national radio audience, that was pretty stout. That will get the hair on the back of your neck to stand up. One of the other ones was when Ricky Craven won his first Cup race. I've known Ricky since he was fifteen years old. I very clearly remember Ricky Craven walking up to Tom Curley and I at Unity Raceway in Maine after a race one night and saying "You guys don't know me. My name's Ricky Craven. I drive the number twelve hobby-stock and my goal is someday to be good enough to race with you guys on your tour." And ten, twelve years later I'm calling the final turn of the final lap as Ricky Craven wins his first Cup race. That was pretty cool.

PR: I'll end this with a stick-and-ball question. How big of a Red Sox fan are you?

DM: Huge. You can't grow up in New England without being, well you can but it's not recommended. I'm forty-eight years old. I suffered with the Red Sox for over forty years. But that is the neat thing about being a Red Sox fan. You just develop this fatalistic approach to life. Whatever good happens you don't truly enjoy it because you know it will all go to hell. If you are a Red Sox fan, even today after two World Series wins still it is engrained in your psyche "Don't get too excited because something is going to happen." When you are brought up a Red Sox fan you never, truly completely enjoy anything because you are always thinking "How can this go to hell?" I'm figuring out right now when I move to Charlotte It's going to cost me a ton of money to get all these season packages on cable to keep up with my teams. But I'll do it. During our conversation, Moody's true love of the sport came through in his speech. He has the background people involved with the top level of motorsports in this country should have. Discovering and learning the sport at the grassroots level and working his way up because of a racing passion. He has just as much of a solid grasp on the short track world as the higher levels and understands how important the "little guy" is. That "little guy" is the backbone of this entire sport and that fact is not lost on Moody. He enjoys his work and has an honest respect and appreciation for what he does and whom he works with. He may like it so much that he would do his job for free. But we will let that be our little secret.

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