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My extensive career, with its victories and defeats, championships, etc., has been well documented. My entire life has been focused on being the best race car driver I can be.

What makes a champion great is how he dethrones the guy before him. Look at Mike Tyson against Trevor Berbick and how he crushed him. You have to rip the title away from him.

If I'm watching my favorite boxer, and he's just won the heavyweight championship of the world, and he retires, it kind of makes the guy a legend.

The great player, so much of the greatness, in my mind, is in his heart and his head. It's not in his body, in his skill set. It comes from having great talent but wanting to mold that and fit it together into being special. And being special means winning championships.

A lot of things are out of my control, and that's all the other athletes. I can be the best I can ever be, and if there's someone better, they'll win the race. I'm aware of that.

It's tough to win major championships. So many things and emotions go through your mind.

I want to be able to be looked back on and know that he was one of the greats in the game.

He was a top man and a good professional. He was one of those who you know will never play a trick and you can ask him to do anything for you and he will. An unassuming man and a great loss to us all.

Rivalries don't necessarily mean races being close at major championships. I had a rivalry with Butch Reynolds for many years. I won all the races, but Butch was the world record holder before I came into the sport, he was extremely talented and he was the only other man running 43 seconds.

As far as I'm concerned, Parnelli Jones was the greatest driver of his era. He had aggressiveness and also a finesse that no one else possessed. And he won with everything he put his hands on, including off-road.